This March writer/musician and self-described excessive comic fan, Max Bemis gives us an establishment gone wrong with his new series Evil Empire. We got a chance to talk with the mult-ihyphenate creator about this new series, which is one we’re really looking forward to.
The series concept sounds fantastic and in his own words he described it as:
Evil Empire is a realistic depiction of how modern society could actually end up in a post-apocalyptic world. I think we have a decent amount of post-apocalyptic books and more importantly sci-fi movies and end of the world scenarios that start with this dystopian, evil government running the world or the galaxy. Evil Empire is a realistic take on how that could occur in the present day and how we can wind up there with just a little bit of a nudge.
This is the follow up project from Bemis after his breakout series Polarity, which made numerous best-of 2013 lists and was published by BOOM! Studios, the same publisher behind this new venture.
Oftentimes, when we are introduced to totalitarian regimes in stories, they are already fully realized and in power and it’s up to our hero to bring back order and peace. However, in Evil Empire, we get to explore how that would unfold in a real-world setting. It acts sort of a parable on modern society. How close to the precipice are we right now in the world we live in? Would we let it happen? More specific to this tale: Would we secretly WANT it to happen?
The idea for the story came from a fear that was instilled at a young age in Bemis of a society coming undone and losing its morality and moral compass. That fear came from understanding and learning about his grandparents experience during the Holocaust. The story isn’t about fascism, nor about anarchy, this is a society we’ve never seen, one that champions pure evil. The government in Evil Empire allows you to do whatever you want and where the police and military reinforce evil acts instead of good. He says this isn’t too far off from the real world considering all the horrible things we do to each other, including funding war instead of improving ourselves and not actually working on solutions to our problems.
While the story might sound like it’s partially ripped from the headlines, Max said that’s not the case, this has been a long time coming and he wasn’t influence by recent events as he is ingrained in his opinions and has issues with both sides of the political spectrum. To him “everyday reality is pretty dark already.” Bemis sees the whole system as corrupt and that the counter culture displayed in youth today just being a “product of the system.” The comic looks at the corruption of government, corporations and society but he sees it as a “damnation of the human condition and the depths of depravity we can sink to.”
The world of Evil Empire might sound like a world of libertarianism to the extreme where all id is ok, though Bemis made a point that any extreme of belief can end up like this and “different people use different language to justify getting there.” In his view any movement can get you so focused, you forget about the others around you. He reiterated this isn’t about any one movement or belief, it’s about all of them.
The story focuses on a female underground rapper named Reese. It’s a belief that the best music comes out at time of great strife, so having a musician at the center of the story was a deliberate choice by Bemis. He feels hip-hop and pop are informing and raising issues in society, pointing out Kanye West, or Lauryn Hill and more appropriately Macklemore. Reese is a successful artist, bucking trends and speaking out about politics, she is Rage Against the Machine, as a rapper. Reese has the success of West, with no ego, and focused on destroying the clichés.
Bemis and BOOM! felt it was important to have Reese involved from the beginning, this story being on a personal level and having the lead as a woman. That makes the events a greater challenge to the character and they felt realistically that she’d have to fight more as an African-American female to be heard, appropriate for the story and character. But beyond all of that, most importantly she’s a human being that’s vulnerable. Reese’s anger is a product of the environment she’s in.
The comic debuts March 5th with a final cut-off order date of February 10th. You can check out the various covers to the first issue as well as interior art and character designs by Ransom Getty below.
Covers A, C, and D by Jay Shaw
Cover B by Robbi Rodriguez
Interior art and character designs by Ransom Getty
